October Q&A | Novara Co-Founders Aaron Bastani and James Butler

welcome to this month's Navara Q&A our questions and answers I'm AR manani and I've got fellow nvar media co-founder James Butler here too James I'll ask you again how are you I'm very well it's so nice to be back in the studio I'm really I'm really glad you're back James I hear it all the time from so many people where is James Butler where is he I say well like you know this is like we're we're it's like one of the leading scientists from the Manhattan projects gone missing you know I don't think I'm quite that exalted but um you know obviously I should say to people that they can come and find my writing at the London Review of Books um which is not a competitor but an interlocutor to something like Nara yeah we love the uh we love the lrb and James is doing Sterling work there tonight we'll be answering your questions on politics Nara Media or whatever you'd like to ask uh we've got a few questions lined up from Instagram that you've already sent us but if you're watching live and have a question send it on the super chat we'll get over to those also keep it clean uh but we will do it I promise first up we have a question from Ella Collis and she said what was the driving force in founding Navara James I'll hand it over to you oh wow okay well this is going back a very long time now um Aaron and I uh met at a student occupation UCL I think I'm sure he's told this story on air before um but we emerged really from that movement and one of the things that became clear um we were offered um a a radio slot on resonance FM which is where it all started resonance 104 for FM in London it's worth tuning in my bedroom radio is always tuned into residence um and we used that as a as a as a place to discuss the movement um this was the student movement against um uh the change in in University funding regimes the the inition the the introduction of the £99,000 a year fees there was obviously the big demonstrations then that was part of the kind of anti-austerity movement as well but when we realized that something ...